


i can see you standing, honey (with his arms around your body)

by cooliopio



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Injury, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Panic Attacks, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:02:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26313100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cooliopio/pseuds/cooliopio
Summary: Bokuto sat with his back to the cool surface of the bathtub; knees to his chest, and the heels of his hands pressed hard into his eyes as his fingers shook. Despite his efforts, tears traced down his cheeks and pooled at his chin; they held there for a moment, suspended in time, on the edge—much like he was—before entering free-fall and darkening his shirt and boxers.Bokuto has a breakdown. Akaashi helps.
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou
Comments: 4
Kudos: 172





	i can see you standing, honey (with his arms around your body)

**Author's Note:**

> tw for self harm and graphic descriptions of blood and injury (but not too graphic)

Bokuto sat with his back to the cool surface of the bathtub; knees to his chest, and the heels of his hands pressed hard into his eyes as his fingers shook. A small razor, scavenged from an old shaving head, was pinched between his forefinger and thumb both delicately and clumsily. Despite his efforts, tears traced down his cheeks and pooled at his chin; they held there for a moment, suspended in time, on the edge—much like he was—before entering free-fall and darkening his shirt and boxers.

Regret filled his body and boiled inside of him. Though, the regret was incomparable to the other emotions he felt inside of him at the moment. Contempt, shame, nothingness- Bokuto was a melting pot of expectations and the bitter spices of life.

He heaved steady breaths in, though they weren’t effective. With every breath he took he felt like he was feeding oxygen to the kindling of a fire and it grew and grew and grew with each heaving chest full.

His upper thighs, always hidden with his long kneepads, were orderly lined with injuries old and new, intentional and not. And, most notably, at the moment, was a spattering of fresh ones. He knew that, with his current down trot, he needed to get someone before he got any worse.

Bokuto stared at the white tile of the floor, trying to arrange his mind together like a stack of scattered documents and gather the energy and motivation to move. He noticed that the grout was dirty, and that it needed to be scrubbed, soon. On some of the tiles, there were the faintest. Indications of rust-orange staining from times he sat too long; it seeped into the hairline cracks of the tile of his old house, much like his unrelenting shadows seeped into the gorges of his soul.

His fingers twitched, then his thighs, before he tried flexing his toes. It was like starting a project car that sat a decade too long in the garage’s engine—he had to rev his body up delicately, cautiously to make sure he wouldn’t break. Slowly, he swiveled his feet under him and crawled the few feet to the sink, where his phone sat, on all fours. The dirty blade found its way to the floor without his attention.

He palmed the counter with no precision; swiping his hand blindly, he searched for his phone. The counter was littered with _stuff_ : his mom’s discarded makeup, his sister’s lotion, his dad’s beard trimmer, his crusty bottle of hair gel, globs of dried toothpaste, a cup of toothbrushes. And his phone. Somewhere. Finally, he came away with his phone and slumped back onto the floor, landing on his shoulder. His head hung loosely, and he flipped open his phone and sent a lazy, devoid text to Akaashi.

>Akaashi

_I fudked up help plz_

After sending off the text, the phone clattered to the floor as he decidedly spent all his energy. His eyes pandered around the room unfocused and absentmindedly. He met eyes with himself in the mirror mounted on the door. He couldn’t help but think about how pathetic he looked. His hair was down and tangled, mouth gaped open like a fish as he lacked the strength to keep it shut, bags under his eyes a deep purple, cheeks hollow. He looked away from himself, unable to bear the sight of himself, and saw the state of his thighs. The blood was coagulating, and had dripped and dried down quite a way, forming their own tragic rivers down to his knees as they smeared into lakes from his disjoint movement. As quiet sob choked its way out from his throat as he entered another round of sobbed panic, his phone, cast away on the floor, vibrated several times over the course of who knows how long, deaf to his ears.

<Akaashi

_? what happened, Bokuto-san?_

_…_

_Bokuto-san?_

_…Kou._

_I’m coming over._

An indefinite amount of time passed in Bokuto’s mind. He lay slack on the floor, energy and, seemingly, life, seeping out of him and into the cold tiles. In the back of his mind, he heard the slam of the front door and light steps fleeing up the stairs and the door to the bathroom being opened. None of this really registered to him until he was looking into the eyes of Akaashi as he was trying to speak to him.

“..ou!… Kou! Koutarou, look at me!” Akaashi prodded, his voice gentle, but edged with desperation and worry.

Bokuto met his eyes and focused on him with recognition.  
“There you are,” Akaashi sighed in relief, a smile tugging at his lips. “Let’s get you to your bed, alright?”

Bokuto lazily nodded.

Akaashi heaved Bokuto up with a little difficulty. Usually, he could manage Bokuto, but he was mostly dead weight at the moment, only doing the bare minimum to keep himself upright; and, most of it was held by Akaashi as he heavily leaned into his side. Akaashi led Bokuto the few doorways to his room and deposited him gently on the unmade bed.

Akaashi wordlessly left the room again to fetch a first aid kit, and returned before Bokuto could register hiss absence. Akaashi gently wiped away dried blood with an alcohol pad; Bokuto was dissociated enough to where he didn’t even register the sting on his open wounds. After cleaning the wounds, Akaashi carefully peeled Bokuto’s blood-stained boxers off of him. Before putting fresh ones on, Akaashi bandaged the wounds as to not get the clean ones soiled with blood as well. Then, Akaashi straddled Bokuto’s hips and stomach, well away from the wounds, and used his weight to help ground Bokuto.

Akaashi pressed his front against Bokuto’s and buried his face next to his so that he could whisper in Bokuto’s ear; his hands combed their way through Bokuto’s hair reassuringly.

After a while, Akaashi felt Bokuto’s strong arms encircle his own waist.

“Hey baby,” Akaashi murmured. “How do you feel?”

Bokuto’s arms tightened into more of a hug. “Bad.”

Akaashi hummed in acknowledgement. “Any reason why?”

Bokuto grunted in affirmation.

“Do you want to tell me why?” Akaashi asked. “You don’t have to,” he clarified. “Whatever you’re comfortable with.”

Bokuto let out a soft, resigned sigh. “I just… I feel awful all the time. I thought I was getting better, and then everything was awful again.”

“Yeah, I get that. Want to elaborate?”

Bokuto shrugged. “I feel off my game in volleyball. My grades are slipping. My parents keep asking me what I plan to do after graduation and it just feels like everything is out of my control.”

“And is that why you—”

“Yeah.” Bokuto sighed again, this time, heavily. “Do you hate me for it?”

Akaashi pulled out of Bokuto’s grip in order to look him in the eye and hold his face in his slender hands. “No. I could never hate you, Koutarou. Not for this, not for anything.”

Bokuto closed his eyes and took a deep breath in through his nose, “okay.” He replied on the exhale, “okay.

Akaashi dipped down to catch Bokuto’s lips in a tender kiss lasting a mere moment.

“I love you, alright, Koutarou?”

“Yeah,” Bokuto agreed, meeting Akaashi’s lips for a moment once more, “I love you too, Keiji.”

“Nothing will keep me from loving you,” Akaashi said as he stroked the hair off of Bokuto’s forehead. “Not this. Never this.”

Bokuto nodded.

“I’ll be there for your bad days, always. Always, you got that?”

Bokuto nodded once again. “I got it.”

Akaashi caught Bokuto’s lips once more and poured as much love as he could into it—to make sure Bokuto _knew._

“You’re going to have to talk to your doctor about switching your meds, again. I don’t want to walk into that again. I will, if I have to. I’d do anything for you, Bokuto-san, but it hurts to see you like that.”

“I wish you’d drop the -san,” Bokuto muttered into Akaashi’s chest.

“ _Bokuto-san,”_ Akaashi asserted, voice laced with a playful coolness.

“Yeah, yeah. Akaashi. I’ll talk to my parents.”

“Good.”

“Akaashi?”

“Yes, Bokuto-san?”

“Will you keep playing with my hair?”

“Of course, Koutarou.”

“Thanks, Keiji.”

**Author's Note:**

> all i write is depressing fic because its how i cope LMFAO  
> tumblr @ unfairlawyer


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